NATO against Serbia
In 1998, some years after the death of Tito the independence movements in former Yugoslavia shocked the world. First the world saw the atrocities in Croatia next in Bosnia and then the same happened in Kosovo. In this part of Yugoslavia 90% of the population was from Albanian origin but the Serbs saw this area as an inseparable part of Serbia. Therefore Serbia attacked the independence seeking population in Kosovo with great violence. In 1998 President Milosevic gave signs to comply with demands of the UN Security Council to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. However, despite all diplomatic efforts, Milosevics´ forces continued their offensive against Kosovo Albanians.
The refugees camps in Albania
First a limited number of families crossed the border with Albania in order to escape from the attacks of the Serbs but when it got the form of large scale ethnic cleansing by the Milosevics´forces in a few days the number of refugees from Kosovo that across the border with Albania increased to 200.000 . At some moment there were 5000 people on the main square of the border town Kukes. The Red Cross and the UN were surprised by this stream of refugees and were not yet there. It took a week before they came with some material to help the refugees. On the other hand the media were there. For example Christiane Amanpour of CNN was there to show what was happening. Also the Dutch TV reported about the situation interviewing an employee of the Dutch Red Cross. Below are some pictures he made of the situation at that time.
First a limited number of families crossed the border with Albania in order to escape from the attacks of the Serbs but when it got the form of large scale ethnic cleansing by the Milosevics´forces in a few days the number of refugees from Kosovo that across the border with Albania increased to 200.000 . At some moment there were 5000 people on the main square of the border town Kukes. The Red Cross and the UN were surprised by this stream of refugees and were not yet there. It took a week before they came with some material to help the refugees. On the other hand the media were there. For example Christiane Amanpour of CNN was there to show what was happening. Also the Dutch TV reported about the situation interviewing an employee of the Dutch Red Cross. Below are some pictures he made of the situation at that time.
We saw that this Dutchman was our friend Willem Smit. We had not seen him for more than 25 years. Now we saw him in this terrible situation. When we had contact with him before he came only to the Netherlands to play cricket, the rest of the time he went around the world. It seemed that he now had accepted a regular job at the Red Cross. He had been in many difficult situations in his life but this situation was a shock for him. He had the impossible task to cope with this stream of refugees in Albania without the necessary means to help them. The situation had run completely out of hand. Something had to be done.
The political options
Milosevic ignored all diplomatic efforts. The UN Security Council could not take stronger measures due to a veto of Russia. Therefore, the NATO countries, especially the US and Great Britain, considered to intervene with force. On the basis of publications in journals we reconstructed the possible actions and the consequences that were expected by the politicians involved in this decision problem.
It turned out that three possible strategies were considered:
S1: Doing nothing,
S2: Intervene with air- and ground forces.
S3: Intervene only with air forces.
The possible consequences of these three strategies also were mentioned by politicians indicating also the likelihood that the different consequences would occur. Summarizing this information led to such a complex decision problem that politicians could not speak about it in its totality. Besides that it was not possible to draw a conclusion what to do without numeric information of the consequences and the probabilities. For example, in strategy 1 and 3 the opinion was that the population of Kosovo would not be protected very well, while that would be possible using strategy 2. However, strategy 2 would lead to many more deaths and costs at the NATO side than in strategy 1 and 3. In such a situation one has to weigh against each other the protection of Kosovars against loss of lives and financial costs of the NATO. This dilemma was avoided by the NATO decision makers by excluding strategy 2 using air and ground forces. When making this decision they saw the loss of lives of Kosovars as less serious than the costs for the NATO. Given that the first reason for thinking about an intervention was to protect the population of Kosovo, this was a strange decision.
Milosevic ignored all diplomatic efforts. The UN Security Council could not take stronger measures due to a veto of Russia. Therefore, the NATO countries, especially the US and Great Britain, considered to intervene with force. On the basis of publications in journals we reconstructed the possible actions and the consequences that were expected by the politicians involved in this decision problem.
It turned out that three possible strategies were considered:
S1: Doing nothing,
S2: Intervene with air- and ground forces.
S3: Intervene only with air forces.
The possible consequences of these three strategies also were mentioned by politicians indicating also the likelihood that the different consequences would occur. Summarizing this information led to such a complex decision problem that politicians could not speak about it in its totality. Besides that it was not possible to draw a conclusion what to do without numeric information of the consequences and the probabilities. For example, in strategy 1 and 3 the opinion was that the population of Kosovo would not be protected very well, while that would be possible using strategy 2. However, strategy 2 would lead to many more deaths and costs at the NATO side than in strategy 1 and 3. In such a situation one has to weigh against each other the protection of Kosovars against loss of lives and financial costs of the NATO. This dilemma was avoided by the NATO decision makers by excluding strategy 2 using air and ground forces. When making this decision they saw the loss of lives of Kosovars as less serious than the costs for the NATO. Given that the first reason for thinking about an intervention was to protect the population of Kosovo, this was a strange decision.
The arguments of Clinton and Blair for their decisions
Clinton and Blair both considered in public speeches only the possibilities S1, to do nothing and S3, to intervene using only air forces.
Clinton specified the following argument: S1 if we do nothing, more Kosovars will be killed, there will be thousands of refugees and NATO will be discredited for doing nothing. If things get worse NATO would have to become involved causing greater risks and costs than if we chose S3, an action using only air forces. S3 will generate a lot of damage to the Serbs which will prevent the killing of more Kosovars and there will be less risks for NATO militaries. Strategy 1 only led to negative outcomes according to Clinton while Strategy 3 would only lead to positive results or consequences which were less negative than under strategy 1. Therefore his choice for Strategy 3 is obvious.
Clinton and Blair both considered in public speeches only the possibilities S1, to do nothing and S3, to intervene using only air forces.
Clinton specified the following argument: S1 if we do nothing, more Kosovars will be killed, there will be thousands of refugees and NATO will be discredited for doing nothing. If things get worse NATO would have to become involved causing greater risks and costs than if we chose S3, an action using only air forces. S3 will generate a lot of damage to the Serbs which will prevent the killing of more Kosovars and there will be less risks for NATO militaries. Strategy 1 only led to negative outcomes according to Clinton while Strategy 3 would only lead to positive results or consequences which were less negative than under strategy 1. Therefore his choice for Strategy 3 is obvious.
Tony Blair started also with S1 doing nothing. Under this strategy he expected that there will be no costs for NATO except a bad image. Besides that there will be no protection of the Kosovars, many refugees and possibly the conflict will even increase. On the other hand he expected from S3, the use of only air force, that it may have serious consequences for the NATO forces (by attacks of the Serbs) but no damage of the NATO image. He also expected serious consequences for the people in the region and a possible widening of the conflict to other regions. His preference for S3 on the basis of these arguments is not at all clear. The only more positive point of S3 was that the image of NATO was not damaged. Otherwise he expected more or less the same problems for both strategies although he even suggested serious consequences for NATO forces under S3 and not under S1. The choice is only explainable if we assume that he thought that the good image NATO was more valuable than the negative consequences for the NATO militaries but he did not say so.
Although we see that the politicians used the same approach to discuss this decision problem as we have mentioned before, the argument of Clinton is completely clear while the argument of Blair is to say the least incomplete and not convincing.